After mowing of a standing crop, it has usually been the practice to leave the windrow for two or three days to cure in the sun and wind before picking it up progressively by means of a hay baler having a forwardly-mounted pick-up in the form of a rake. The windrow material to be so cured is left on the ground until it has the dry appearance which results after having had its moisture content reduced to approximately 17% by weight.
The hay baler feeds the material so obtained from a windrow into the compressing chamber of the baler where it is compressed to a weight of about 70 pounds and then tied with twine or wire to form a bale. The resulting bales are allowed to fall onto the round at regular intervals. The bales are then picked up from the ground and taken to a suitable storage site for subsequent disposal directly as fodder or for the production of such as chaff or meal at a later date.
In this connection, it will be appreciated that dew which falls on a windrow throughout the night is most essential to ensure that the leaf will not fracture on impact when it comes into contact with the baler mechanism. On the other hand, if a dewfall is too heavy, it may then be necessary to allow the windrow to remain for a period of one or two hours in the sun until the moisture content is once again low enough for picking up and bailing operations. This optimum moisture content condition, however, may well last only for a few hours. Particularly during a spell of hot, `drying` weather, overnight dewfall may be completely absent and so allow the windrow material to become overcured before it can be garnered, with the result that the material fractures on impact and produces unsatisfactory bales liable to crumble during handling. As is all too common, little or no dew may settle on windrows for night after night in heatwave conditions and finally a storm will seriously damage the windrowed hay--reducing it to low grade quality or even effectively destroying it completely.
For these reasons, hay baling has been difficult and inefficient. While the art does contain some devices and mechanisms which are intended to maintain proper conditions for hay during such a process, these devices often are not accurate or efficient. Some of these devices may also be extremely costly. For example, some devices do not accurately control the drying process so the exact amount of moisture can be maintained, and cannot be controlled in the event the set amount of moisture is to be changed for some reason.
In fact, since hay may be subjected to varying environmental conditions, such as wet, humid conditions in one case and dry cool conditions in another case, one single treatment process is not likely to satisfy all drying requirements. The single process may be too long in some conditions and too short in others.
Therefore, there is a need for a hay conditioning device which is efficient, reliable and controllable. Still further, there is a need for hay drying mechanism which can set an exact amount of moisture desired, and yet can vary this set amount as required.
Still further, many prior drying machines heat the hay in a manner which causes a loss of color and protein percentage.